Largest Pro-Life Organization in Kansas

The Kansas Attorney General’s office is fighting a court ruling last month that the 1859 state constitution contains a “fundamental” right to abortion,”independent and separate from” that declared by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the office of pro-life A.G. Derek Schmidt filed a motion to rush that issue up to the Kansas Supreme Court, bypassing the state court of appeals. Abortion attorneys are expected to file a similar request.

The legal challenge at the heart of this was brought in June against the first-in-nation Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act.(read more here).

Dismemberment abortions are defined as intentionally causing the death of a living unborn child in the uterus by ripping him/her apart “through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments.”

The plaintiff is the Center for Women’s Health, the office of Kansas father-daughter abortionists, Herb Hodes and Traci Nauser. CWH attorneys couldn’t have asked for more from the ruling of Shawnee County Judge Larry Hendricks last month, who not only issued a temporary injunction that blocked the dismemberment ban from going into effect, but also grounded the decision on a hitherto-undiscovered state “constitutional” abortion right.

The Kansas A.G. attorneys assert that the state supreme court is the correct venue for ruling on whether a-never-before-declared right to abortion is found in the pre-Civil War constitution –adopted at a time when abortion was illegal in every state.

The A.G. seeks a ruling on the state constitutional question and whether federal abortion rulings were incorrectly interpreted.

The Kansas Supreme Court needs to move expeditiously for several reasons, urges the A.G. filing, including the existence of two other lawsuits filed by CWF (in 2011 and 2013) which are lagging in state court and would be directly impacted by a decision about this so-called fundamental state right to abortion.

Oklahoma enacted an identical dismemberment abortion ban due to go into effect in November, which abortion interests are also expected to challenge.

Of note recently in undercover video journalism (see here) is that dismemberment abortion is the prime method relied upon for trafficking in baby body parts.

The U.S. Senate will vote as early as Monday, August 3, on a bill — strongly backed by National Right to Life — that would cut off all federal funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and all of its affiliates.

Please act immediately to convey your strong support for this billhere.

Kansans for Life is pleased that Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran are co-sponsors of S. 1881, which provides that “no Federal funds may be made available to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, or to any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, successors, or clinics.” The bill also contains a finding that states, “All funds no longer available to Planned Parenthood will continue to be made available to other eligible entities to provide women’s health care services.”

Pro-lifers must stay informed and share on social networking these horrific revelations at Planned Parenthood. Mainstream media sources have practically blocked this story, read more here.

PPFA is the nation’s largest provider of abortions — about one-third of all abortions in the U.S. are performed at PPFA-affiliated facilities.

PPFA also receives at least $528 million annually from the federal government or other levels of government.

PPFA affiliates and senior physician-executive have been caught on undercover video as trafficking in organs from aborted babies, triggering Congressional and state investigations.

See the latest undercover expose by the Center for Medical Progress here (warning: contains image of dismembered unborn child). An overview of the video revelations is here.

Kansans for Life applauds pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback for asking for a probe into potential baby body part trafficking in Kansas. See video excerpts of the Governor’s most recent press conference on this breaking scandal here and here.

Gov. Brownback’s instruction Tuesday that abortion facility inspections by the medical board and health department include inquiries into organ harvesting was called “political grandstanding” by Laura McQuade, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri (PPKMM).

However, the media neglected to showcase that Kansas really has good reason to probe abortion businesses. PPKMM’s Overland Park abortion business, Comprehensive Health, did indeed have onsite abortion specimen procurement for years— involving at least two companies during the 1990s according to testimony.

Planned Parenthood hopes no one will remember that their procurement programs were a key reason Kansas passed a law in 2000 covering “harvesting” of bodily parts of unborn children.

McQuade told the media Tuesday, “Our affiliate does not have or participate in tissue donation programs.” If that is so, what is the harm in an official inquiry?

The public has a right to know, especially after the release of two shocking videos by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress (July 14 and July 21) that show secretly-recorded discussions of fetal harvesting by top-ranked physicians of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).

Of note also, is that PPKMM is using the tamer, more amorphous term “tissue donation.” By contrast, Planned Parenthood physicians in those videos clearly discuss what abortion techniques insure they can retrieve specific entire organs and “intact” samples.

PPKMM CEO McQuade

Though McQuade wants the public to dismiss these discoveries about PPFA, probing the unseemly side of procuring aborted-baby body parts is not new, and did not come from pro-lifers.

According to a March 8, 2000 episode of ABC News 20/20, a whistle-blower claimed two tissue-retrieval companies he worked for went so far as to, on some occasions, encourage him to take fetal tissue obtained from women who had not consented to donate their child’s remains for research.

WHAT HAPPENED IN KANSAS
More specifically, on that program, Miles Jones, owner of Opening Lines, said he was able to make $50,000 a week from the sale of fetal body parts. Jones’ company supposedly held a contract with PPKMM to dispose of the clinic’s fetal tissue, from which “donated tissue” was put up for sale at a profit during a 10-week period in 1998. (Read more here and here)

Opening Lines had a price list that advertised costs for various fetal body parts, such as: $999 for the brain of a fetal child between 22-23 weeks, $150 for skin, $325 for a spinal cord, $550 for reproductive organs, and $75 apiece for eyes, according to March 2000 accounts of ABC’s 20/20 and the Kansas City Star.

Even though an investigation eight years later by the US Attorney in Kansas concluded that Jones did not violate any federal laws, the harvesting was connected to the Kansas Planned Parenthood. Gov. Brownback thus has good reason to check up on baby body part trafficking, based not only on recent history at Planned Parenthood, but on current conditions.

OPPORTUNITY IN KANSAS?
Kansas should be alert to this fetal harvesting issue because all three in-state abortion businesses currently perform dismemberment abortions upon living unborn children who have not already been killed with a lethal injection by the abortionist. The new law banning such abortions on still-living unborn children is under injunction and being appealed.(see here)

637 such Kansas abortions were reported to the health department in 2014. We have absolutely no idea what became of those remains, but the opportunity potentially exists for aborted baby body parts trafficking in Kansas.

Dismemberment of unborn children while still alive is the abortion method that yields “useable” intact bodily organs and limbs and is clearly the method discussed in the full-length version of the July 14 video.

Pro-life researcher Theresa Dreisher, Ph.D., who spent more than 20 years in the commercial biomedical industry, commented on the current video revelations in a new National Catholic Register report (here).

“In order to get good heart tissue, it has to be processed within five minutes of death. I bet the gruesome fact is that many of those babies are alive when they are harvested.”

The “sale” of organs for transplantation, both adult and fetal, is illegal, but donation of tissue — both from aborted fetuses and from adults — is not. Payment for “reasonable” costs, including payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, and storage is allowed under federal law, the pertinent provisos being 42 U.S. Code 274e and 42 U.S. Code 289g.

CMP director Daleiden

In that same NCR report,the Center for Medical Progress video project director, David Daleiden, said they have at least a dozen video exposes on this topic and plan to release one a week.

He explained, “Our investigators spent almost three years deeply imbedded with Planned Parenthood and their affiliates and we heard from their own mouths, over and over, again and again, that they make money off of selling the parts of aborted babies and have a profit motive in doing so.”

“Turning aborted babies into a revenue stream is an inhuman exploitation of the not fully dead,” Daleiden continued. “They are saying that some unborn babies are more valuable dead than alive. It’s a terrible, barbaric place for a democratic society to go.”

Late this afternoon, pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback made Kansas the eighth state to take action to address shocking revelations about organ and tissue procurement from abortion clinics. Tapes of two undercover stings of top abortionists from Planned Parenthood can be found here.

The Governor issued the following statement: “Kansas remains committed to a culture that respects the dignity of life at all stages. Recent videos show Planned Parenthood employees treating the unborn as commodities as they discuss the sale of tissue and organs. This does not reflect the culture of life most Kansans want.”

Brownback called on the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, with the co-operation of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) “to investigate, as part of its inspection of office-based surgical practices, whether any Kansas facility is engaged in the inhumane practice of selling tissue and organs from unborn children who are aborted.”

Three abortion businesses operate in Kansas:

Comprehensive Health/Planned Parenthood in Overland Park is licensed as an ambulatory surgical center under KDHE;

SouthWind Women’s Center in Wichita and Center for Women’s Health are the offices of Kansas-licensed physicians and are governed by some surgical guidelines and limited, announced inspection by the Healing Arts Board.

Unfortunately, all three clinics should be governed by the 2011-enacted abortion clinic licensure law that had been sought for 10 years, and had been twice vetoed by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. However, a local judge enjoined it and stalled any progress on it at a hearing Friday (Read more here).

INHUMANE DISMEMBERMENT ABORTIONS AT ISSUE
The first video discusses harvesting of organs and limbs, but of key importance is the fact that such retrieval is totally dependent on the unborn child still being ALIVE during the abortion.

In the video released July 14 (see here) Planned Parenthood’s medical director, who trains all their abortionists, discusses performing abortions past the midpoint of pregnancy. In the video, she describes “crushing” the unborn child with forceps in distinct areas, with the “guidance” of ultrasound in order to preserve certain requested organs and limbs.

What she repeatedly describes is a DISMEMBERMENT ABORTION –performed with a financial secondary motive. Kansas banned dismemberment abortions in April but yet another activist judge has blocked the ban from going into effect. (Read more here)

In such dismemberment abortions, the barbaric hacking off of bodily limbs and organs is done to a LIVING, well-developed little boy or girl while still inside his or her mother’s womb.

The brutal truth of fetal harvesting is that the unborn child MUST BE CHOPPED UP WHILE ALIVE to extract “useable” pre-ordered organs: hearts, lungs, livers, heads, etc.

Gov. Brownback’s statement today concluded thusly,“Human life has dignity at all stages of life. Senate Bill 95, banning dismemberment abortion in Kansas, prevents the barbaric procedure of dismembering an unborn child. We must remind ourselves and others that unborn children are just that – children – with certain inalienable rights that we must respect and protect.”

With a “refusal to rule” late Friday afternoon, a local judge continues to thwart state oversight of abortion facilities as permitted under the pivotal 1992 Planned Parenthoodv Casey U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

To the consternation of pro-lifers, the 2011 Kansas abortion clinic licensure law remains blocked in the Topeka court of District Judge Franklin Theis.

On Friday afternoon, Judge Theis denied the state of Kansas’ request that he rule on whether the law discriminated against women, as alleged by the litigants, the Overland Park Center for Women’s Health [CWH].

Attorney Sarah Warner, representing the office of Attorney General Derek Schmidt, explained that

the litigants’ “equal protection” claims as a reason to overturn state abortion laws had been rejected 20 times by the U.S. Supreme Court going all the way back to 1977.

In other words, failed arguments should be dismissed.

Warner also told Judge Theis that the Supreme Court has upheld the state’s ‘compelling interests’ in regulating the medical profession and in insuring the health and safety of women inside abortion clinics. Warner referenced the ”jaded” history of unregulated practitioners. She noted that the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell had unfolded during the law’s passage, adding further evidence of the need of such regulation.

Theis listened to the state argument for nearly an hour, then to the short (approximately seven-minute-long) rebuttal from one of CWH’s five seated attorneys.

Judge Theis then restated his initial position–that “he needs facts” and that both sides should continue to plan for trial. “I don’t think you can make a decision without learning the total picture,” Judge Theis said.

In other words, he ducked the critical question he was supposed to answer: whether certain ‘already settled’ claims should be eliminated and focus on whether the state had indeed issued ‘rational’ medical facility oversight.

Judge Theis.commented about the importance of whether such a ruling is upheld, and the fact that it could be headed to the state supreme court, which obviously would have an impact on this clinic law.

Also noted in the hearing was the third lawsuit in yet another district court—also filed by CWH—against the 2013 Kansas Pro-life Protections Act. Although that law is not blocked, the lawsuit challenging it also claims there is a state constitutional right to abortion.

Thus all three suits are linked to the appeal to the Dismemberment injunction ruling in which a single judge believes a hitherto undiscovered right to abortion exists in the Kansas state constitution.

BACKGROUND ON THE LAWThe comprehensive abortion facility licensure law would apply to hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and physician offices in which 5 or more elective abortions were performed in a month. The law requires incident reporting, state health inspections, minimum building codes and local hospital privileges for practitioners.

While the law has been stalled, specific provisions defining abortion “for medical emergencies” and in-person physician delivery of abortion pills have been changed in the last two legislative sessions.

The clinic licensure law had immense public support after decades of abortion malpractice including deaths of 5 women following abortions by Kansas-licensed abortionists. A nearly identical licensure law had twice been passed and vetoed in 2003 and 2005 under former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Videotaped evidence was released today showing a top Planned Parenthood abortionist discussing their selling of baby parts and how they adapt their abortion methods to better obtain certain baby organs, including intact brains. Read more here.

At this point, it is unknown which states besides California are involved, but trafficking in baby parts from an abortion (or stillbirth) is a level 2 nonperson felony under Kansas law. Kansas law also prohibits using the partial-birth abortion method and not giving medical assistance to any babies born alive during abortion.

The hypocrisy and self-serving nature of the abortion industry is revealed in this recent video, particularly in light of claims made by defense attorneys challenging the new Kansas ban on dismemberment abortions.

First, to remind the reader: a dismemberment abortion is described in Kansas and Oklahoma law as one in which a still-alive unborn child inside the mother’s womb is ripped apart in pieces by the abortionist’s sharp metal tools until he or she bleeds to death.

The Kansas law banning such abortions was blocked from going into effect July 1 by an injunction obtained under Shawnee County Judge Larry Hendricks for the Overland Park father and daughter abortionist duo doing business as the Center for Women’s Health (CWH). The state Attorney General is appealing that ruling.

CWH attorneys claim that dismemberment abortions are indispensable for women’s health and that any other abortion method endangers women. But today’s baby parts video expose shows certain abortionists are profiting twice from such second trimester abortions with a secondary fee ($30-$100) for each organ or body part.

In the video, the highest-ranking abortionist for Planned Parenthood breezily recounts how easy it is with ultrasound guidance to prevent crushing the desired baby parts with forceps while still completing the abortion. Yet in court filings, CWH claims that their choice of abortion method is dictated only by the woman’s safety.

Even today, all three Kansas abortion business websites list the so-called “description” of the dismemberment method (called D&E) as one in which the “pregnancy is removed.” This is so dishonest because a living unborn baby—not a “pregnancy”– is physically yanked apart, piece by piece, and reassembled in a basin to examine to insure no parts are left in the mother.

And now, we have great reason to believe that some of those pieces may be specifically targeted for resale! Imagine the horror for women who are not only learning that their past abortions actually tortured their living baby but that certain tissues and organs from their son or daughter were a second source of profit for the abortionist.

A state district court this morning in Topeka issued an injunction that bars the first-in-nation Kansas Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act [Senate Bill 95] from going into effect July 1.

Judge Larry Hendricks granted the block, which was filed and argued by the national Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of the Overland Park Center for Women’s Health –that has sued two other Kansas pro-life laws, still in litigation.

The Kansas Attorney General’s office had defended SB 95 as well-founded on U.S. Supreme Court language that upholds the states’ right to show respect for life inside the mother and to insure the integrity of the medical profession which it regulates.

As defined in SB 95, a dismemberment abortion is performed when sharp metal tools are used to grab and yank off limbs of a living, well-formed, unborn child inside the mother’s womb. Unfortunately, today’s hearing completely omitted the procedure’s description, and focused on dry legal points as if debating a parking lot boundary line.

Kansans for Life executive director, Mary Kay Culp, commented, “Kansans were outraged to learn of this barbaric method of shredding apart innocent unborn children and they will hold the judiciary responsible for rejecting the validity of this duly-passed law.”

In this morning’s hearing, Judge Hendricks totally echoed the abortion industry claim that the federal “right” to an abortion is fully upheld in the Kansas constitution. Hendricks ignores the key 2007 Gonzales ruling, in which the Court said:

“Casey does not allow a doctor to choose the abortion method he or she might prefer …[and physicians] are not entitled to ignore regulations that direct them to use reasonable alternative procedures.”

Even pro-abortion justices of the U. S. Supreme Court have acknowledged that the dismemberment of a living unborn child is as brutal and inhumane a method of abortion as the partial-birth abortion procedure, which is now illegal throughout the country.

SB 95 allowed exceptions for an abortion needed to prevent the death or physical damage to the mother. The federal Partial-birth abortion ban allows only an exception to prevent death of the mother. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that law in 2007.

Kansas health department statistics had shown a recent 9% rise in use of this inhuman dismemberment method, which was used to tear apart 637 living unborn children in 2014.

Kansans for Life believes that this law will eventually be upheld—mirroring the long, but successful partial-birth abortion battle in which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually acknowledged the validity of pro-life legislation.